Masterclass with Lynnée Denise
From DJ Scholarship to Turntable Epistemology: Subversive Methodologies in Creative Research

Organized by Open University The Netherlands (OU) & Netherlands Research School of Gender Studies (NOG)
May 28, 2026, 13:30-17:00h, Open University, Study Center The Hague

Description

This masterclass and workshop are hosted by Lynnée Denise, who will introduce Turntable Epistemology as a practice-based research approach grounded in Black queer cultural production and sonic practice. The session approaches listening as a situated and embodied method of analysis—one that attends to traces, absences, and forms of presence that exceed what is immediately legible.
Rather than treating sound as an object of study, the session works with listening as a way of reading across materials: sonic, textual, and visual. Through this, participants will consider how meaning emerges through texture, repetition, dissonance, and gap.
The session draws on a set of frameworks that inform this approach, including Clyde Woods’ Blues epistemology, Julienne Henriques’ sonic bodies, Katherine McKittrick’s Black geographies, and Stuart Hall’s conjunctural analysis.
Participants will engage in listening-based exercises and discussions that foreground attention and interpretation across different forms of material, with a view to exploring how such approaches might be taken up within their own research.

Biography

Lynnée Denise, a global practitioner of sound, language, and Black Atlantic thought, is an Amsterdam–Johannesburg–based writer and interdisciplinary artist from Los Angeles, California. Influenced by her parents’ record collection and the sonic experimentation of the 1980s, her work traces the migrations of music and the role of Black electronic traditions in the African Diaspora. In 2013, she coined the term DJ Scholarship to describe how knowledge is gathered, interpreted, and produced through a conceptual and theoretical framework, shifting the role of the DJ from party purveyor to archivist and cultural worker. A doctoral student in the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London, Denise’s research explores how sound system culture creates a living archive for the Black queer diaspora.

Readings (PDF available upon registration)

  • McKittrick, Katherine. “Curiosities (My Heart Makes My Head Swim).” Dear Science and Other Stories, Duke University Press, 2021, pp. 1–13.
  • McKittrick, Katherine. “Consciousness (Feeling like, Feeling like This).” Dear Science and Other Stories, Duke University Press, 2021, pp. 58–70.
  • McKittrick, Katherine. “I Got Life / Rebellion Invention Groove.” Dear Science and Other Stories, Duke University Press, 2021, pp. 130–146.

Details Masterclass

Date & Time: May 28, 2026, 13:30-17:00h
Location: Study Center, The Hague, Open University (room TBA)
Contact Person: Luca Soudant (luca.soudant@ou.nl)
Credits: 1 ECTS
Registration: The masterclass is open to RMA students and PhD candidates studying at a university in the Netherlands. Please send an email to nog@uu.nl, using the subject line ‘registration masterclass Denise’. For registration, we need your name, study programme (RMA or PhD), and the research school you’re affiliated with.